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Diphthong is spoken of in phonetics when we are faced with the presence of two vowels together in the same syllable. For a diphthong to be really such, the combination of vowels (such as ae, ai, oa, io, ou, ei, ia, ua and many others) must be composed of a weak vowel and a strong vowel, a difference that is marked in the pronunciation of the word. However, there are also homogeneous diphthongs that present a combination of two weak vowels set in set (the presence of two strong vowels is not known as a homogeneous diphthong, but the syllable is separated in this case). The word diphthong comes from the Greek - dipthongs - word meaning 'two sounds' or 'two tones'.

Diphthongs can be formed by different types of vowels and can then receive various names. The three best known types of diphthongs are decreasing diphthongs (those that begin with a strong vowel and end decreasing towards a weaker vowel), open and closed diphthongs (which vary in how the sound is ultimately produced

instance, if open or closed) and, finally, the central diphthongs (those in which the diphthong closes with a more central sound than at the beginning).

Diphthongs differ from monotonous vowel sounds since in these the vowels are enclosed by consonants, as in the case of 'mouth' or 'Stole'. It is important also note that the presence of the consonant H, in the language Spanish especially, it does not prevent training of diphthongs since it is silent and in phonetics it does not represent any sound. At the same time, the Y (Greek) can be used as an exceptional vowel if it falls at the end of the word (as in 'hay') and therefore form a diphthong. The same does not happen if it appears at beginning, where its sound is altered and acts as a consonant (for example, in the case of 'yerba').

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